Perhaps following the lead of visionary state governors like Angus King, Massachusetts state governor Mitt Romney proposed a plan last week that would provide a laptop computer for every student in grades 6-12 by 2007. The article quotes the following from the proposal:
Pencils “are tools to think with, sufficiently inexpensive to be used for work and play, drawing, writing and mathematics…A computer can be the same, but far more powerful.”
Hopefully the authors of this plan will not forget that while all teachers are quite familiar with the robust use of pencils, the same cannot be said for many when it comes to computer technology. Teacher training should and must be an essential element of this and any other 1:1 laptop initiative. I wonder if Mitt Romney and his aides have read “Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom” by Larry Cuban? If not, they need to get a copy soon and read it cover to cover.
Simply giving technology tools to teachers and students does not a teaching revolution make. Giving the laptops to EVERYONE does constitute an implementation of disruptive technology, in my opinion, but it will not necessarily lead to constructive instructional change if the process is not guided and supported properly.
As home to MIT and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization, this announcement for Massachusetts seems overdue.
Commercial companies like AMD and Yahoo are joining in the 1:1 device production mix apparently also, but I don’t see any way they will be able to underbid OLPC. Competition is a healthy thing, however, and it may be that commercial companies can produce comparably priced laptops with greater functionality than the ones produced by the OLPC group. After listening to Nicholas Negraponte’s 52 minute presentation on the OLPC project last night, that he made last week at MIT, it sounds like the focus is more on the developing world rather than US schools. China spends $16 per primary and secondary age student, while US taxpayers spend thousands per student per year. So maybe this is just a just focus and prioritization.
The same business week article also referenced the Open Content Alliance supported by Yahoo and others, which I blogged about and contrasted favorably with Google Print on Monday. The article adds the following element to the project description, however, which I had not heard of before:
The project will do more than just give everyday Internet users full access to some of the world’s classic works, says Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle. In addition to being available online, the digital books will be included on all of the archive’s “Bookmobiles” — Internet-enabled trucks that print and bind books on demand for the poor and underprivileged.
All of this is very exciting and interesting, and I think it will continue to challenge predominant paradigms and conceptions of just what “teaching and learning” really is.
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On this day..
- Advice for Church Digital Oral History Projects – 2014
- Why Choice Schools Are Essential in Public Schools – 2012
- Can Blogger.com Support Moderated Web Forms for Post Contributions Like WordPress? – 2012
- Tutorial: How To Upload a Video to YouTube – 2012
- Oklahoma City to Doha (narrated slideshow with SonicPics) – 2011
- K-12 Online Conference Presentation Teasers! #k12online10 – 2010
- FTC mandates disclosure for bloggers receiving freebies/payments – 2009
- Dell Mini10V Netbook, Ubuntu, Win7, and Hackintoshes – 2009
- XO Laptop for Christmas? – 2007
- Exponential blog growth – 2005